Monday, September 21, 2009

KEF 105.2 Re-Cap - One down. . .

I tackled one of the two crossover re-caps this weekend and it was a success! ALMOST all the caps fit on the board. There was one, huge 60 uf 250 volt monster that has to hang over the side. No problem as far as mounting the board goes.

I'm not a hands-on, tinkering type of collector. My total number of soldering sessions can be counted on one burnt hand. So, when I finished soldering all these on the board, I was very nervous about putting the board back into the cabinet and testing it. Turned out there was nothing to worry about. The speaker sounds great, and I'll have more time to compare it to the non-upgraded speaker this weekend before I do that crossover too.

I was able to match all the caps values except the 120 uf, which I found a 125 uf for instead. All the caps I bought were 5% tolerance, not the 1% that KEF was known for hand-picking from military spec caps back in the day. I also couldn't find 150 V caps in all the correct values, so I bought 100V ones for most of them instead. 100V will work fine at the volumes I play them at.

Initial tests revealed more open, brighter top-end than the non-upgraded speaker. Again, more on the sound when I get more time to test.

Thanks to all of you who wrote me emails with advice on this project - much appreciated.

3 comments:

  1. Good morning from France,

    I m very interested by your experience cause i'm the owner of a pair of 105.2 1178 sn: 3046 A/B; i want to recap them could you send me the "liste" and value of the condos you have changed. do you find and appeciated results with the "new" crossover; does yours 105.2 are type 1118 or 1119?
    My mail: philippe.fillioux@wanadoo.fr
    Cordialement
    Philippe

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello,i'm very interested too,to receive from you the list of capacitors value that you have replaced in your 105 2,i whish to recap mine .Many thanks from Italy,Massimo.
    m_lugli@libero.it

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hallo France, need the list urgently too for the Kef.
    Thanks to you.
    Ulrich

    Ulrich.Giessel@web.de

    ReplyDelete

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